Irena Sendlerowa honored again by Poland, at age 97

She saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto in WWII. (Large photo shows Ireana in 2005 at age 95)

Irena Sendlerowa, a Polish social worker, was born on February 15, 1910, in Warsaw. During World War II, she was an activist of the Polish Underground and Polish anti-Holocaust resistance in Warsaw, where she helped save about 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto by providing them with false documents and finding hiding places in individual and group children houses out of the Ghetto.

During the World War II German occupation of Poland, she lived in Warsaw while working for the city's Social Welfare Department. She started helping Jews a long time before the Warsaw Ghetto was established. Helping Jews was very risky. In German-occupied Poland, all household members were punished by death if a hidden Jew was found in their house. This was the most severe legislation in occupied Europe. In December of 1942, the newly created Zegota, a council to aid Jews, nominated her to head its children's department. As an employee of the Social Welfare Department, she had a special permit to enter the Warsaw Ghetto, where she wore a Star of David as a sign of solidarity with the Jewish people and so as not to call attention to herself. Very small children she could smuggle out in a bag. Others were taught to cling tightly to her leg, and she walked out with them hidden under her skirts.

She cooperated with the Children's Section of the Municipal Administration, linked with the RGO (Central Welfare Council), a Polish Relief Organization remaining under German supervision. She organized the smuggling of Jewish children from the Ghetto, carrying them out, and placing them with either Polish families, the Warsaw orphanage of the Sisters of the Family of Mary, or Catholic convents such as the Sisters Little Servants of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mary at Turkowice and Chotomowo. She kept lists of the names, hidden in jars buried in her garden, in order to keep track of original and new identities.

Arrested in 1943 by the Gestapo, she was severely tortured and sentenced to death. Zegota saved her by bribing the German guards on the way to her execution. Officially, she was listed on public bulletin boards as among those executed. Even in hiding, she continued her work for the Jewish children.

In 1965, she was recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations, confirmed in 1983 by the Israeli Supreme Court.

In 1999 Norm Conard, a high school teacher from Pittsburg, Kansas, encouraged four students to investigate the life of Irena Sendler. As a result of their findings, the students created a play, entitled "Life in a jar", which presented the heroic acts Mrs. Sendler. As of November 2006, there were over 200 performances: at first in Kansas, then all around the United States and ultimately in Europe.

On October 10, 2003, Sendlerowa received the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest civilian decoration. She also was awarded the Commanders Cross by the Israeli Institute.

On March 14, 2007, Sendlerowa was honoured by Poland's government. At a special session, the upper house of parliament unanimously approved a resolution honouring Ms Sendlerowa for organising the "rescue of the most defenseless victims of the Nazi ideology: the Jewish children."

Polish President Lech Kacyzinski said she was a "great hero who can be justly named for the Nobel Peace Prize".